Communication Skills
by Rubyslippers89
Summary: Semma, set after The Bitterest Pill. Sean and Emma communicate in different ways.


Communication Skills

Disclaimer: Well, duh, if I owned Degrassi this would be on the air instead of on a fanfiction site.

AN: O.k., here we go. I have no idea where this came from, only to say that I've read far too many Semma fics over the past week and I'm embarrassed to say that I've gone and jumped on the bandwagon. So here's the most cannon couple imaginable, Sean and Emma, at their most complicated best. I felt like there should have been more issues with the other characters—after all, they'd already been through a shooting, a stabbing by a rival high school shouldn't just go by without anyone having issues.

Anyway, read away and don't forget to review!

He doesn't even startle when I get in his bed anymore.

Tonight, I let myself into his apartment and try not to wake him as I toe off my shoes and peel off my sweatshirt. I pull the covers back and climb in beside him.

The first night I did this, I had to bang on the door for nearly five minutes to wake him up. After that he gave me a key.

Now he just sighs in his sleep and pulls me closer to him, completely unbothered by the fact that I've just crashed at his house.

"Love you, Em." He whispers into my shoulder and I smile as I settle down. Even as I know this routine of ours doesn't really solve anything—I'm still having nightmares, I still can't sleep, and I still have my issues—I'm eternally grateful he doesn't mind that it exists.

He sighs again and snuggles closer to my shoulder. If Sean ever knew that he snuggled in his sleep he'd be mortified, but it's still true. Besides, if he knew he might try to stop, and we can't have that.

Touching Sean has always been the best part of our relationship.

I know that sounds odd, seeing as the foundation for a good relationship _should_ be clear communication, but Sean doesn't express himself well out loud—and I've learned over the years that it's best to pick you battles in this area.

Regardless of his verbal communication skills or lack thereof, when he touches me it all floats away and we're communicating clear as crystal. He has this way of reminding me why I love him whenever he touches me, whether it was just holding my hand or something more.

When he was in jail I thought I might go crazy because I couldn't touch him. Letters were nice, but Sean never talked about what was going on there—probably because he didn't like to think about me knowing what was going on there—and letters full of memories can only get you so far.

So I started driving the 45 minutes from my house to the prison whenever I could. At least then I could see him, touch him.

In fact, one visit in particular we spent the entire hour hugging. When I'd gotten there that day I was feeling a little out of it, bad day complete with crappy test grade and spat with Manny on my mind. But I walked into the visitor's room and forgot all about my bad day at the sight of him. He had a new cut on his cheek and looked incredibly tired but had a smile on his face when he turned to see me. I sat on the table and he stood in front of me, hugging me like I was going to disappear.

Which, I suppose, I was.

We didn't say anything at first, but after a few minutes he started whispering how much he loved me, over and over. It was beginning to sound a little bit desperate and I pulled back to look at him, but he only let me go a few inches.

"Sean?"

His eyes were closed and his breathing ragged, like he didn't want me to see how upset he really was.

"Sean, what's wrong?" Our foreheads were pressed together and my question was whispered to his lips.

"I just, well—I just didn't want you to leave without knowing. I mean, well—really knowing." The struggle he was having let me know I shouldn't push. This was getting dangerously close to Sean-is-too-uncomfortable-for-words territory, so I decided to go with it. I nodded and whispered that I knew. He looked at me with the most desperately grateful look I'd ever seen and hugged me tighter.

Eventually, he sat in the chair and pulled the chair close to the table. His arms were looped around my waist and his head rested against my stomach as I told him all about what had been going on at school—a funny story about Toby and the janitor, Manny's new anti-Craig moaning in light of the fact that he hasn't called in over a week, just stupid stuff.

He never let go the whole time, and I knew he meant it more than ever before when he said he loved me.

Sean stirs next to me and I see on the clock next to his bed that it's nearly 7. He's waking up and he's going to know that I only slept a few hours last night.

Whatever. I know deep down that the reason I come over here when I know I'm not going to be able to sleep no matter where I am is because he'll make me talk.

For someone who's so into communicating without words himself, he's very good at getting me to spill my guts.

He yawns and looks at me. Before I know it, I'm babbling like a brook. I told you he was good.

"It's nothing, Sean. Really." I try and put it off. He just looks at me, with this look that says he loves me and he wants me to be o.k., that he'll do whatever it takes to make sure I am, even if that means we sit here for days.

"Emma." Oh God, the name. He says my name and I'm melting. Whatever you want, Sean, I'm yours.

"I had another nightmare." I pause and he's just lying there, holding me and looking.

"It was you, this time." I look at him hard, gauging his reaction. He's just as stoic as ever, waiting for me to finish. "He stabbed you instead of J.T. and I was staring at you on the ground and you were—you were bleeding and looking at me and he was laughing and I was screaming and, and I just—"

He pulls me into his chest and lets me cry. This is always the best part about opening up to Sean. He always _always_ knows what to do to make me feel better. Now he's rubbing my back and whispering nonsense in my ear. He's saying things like how much he loves me and how everything's o.k. now and we're both o.k. and he's right here.

God, I love this guy.

I finally stop crying and he lets me pull away. I look at him with watery eyes and he smiles at me.

"I love you too." My quiet declaration makes his smile even better and he brushes hair back from my face.

"You should go shower so you're not late for school." He kisses my forehead and I nod slightly and move from the bed, heading to the bathroom in the back of his apartment.

"I'll be back in a few, Sean," I call back to him as I enter the small bathroom. I hear him mumble something about breakfast from the bedroom and I smile.

I'm not technically living with him, but I may as well be. Mom stopped freaking out about me not being in my bed in the morning when she realized I was never going anywhere but over here. She wasn't happy about it, but I explained that he makes me feel better, stronger even, and eventually she relented. So long as I start out at my house, I'm not late for school and I leave a note so she knows I haven't been kidnapped, I can come over here as often as I want.

I turn on the shower and step in, thankful for the warm water pulsing onto my shoulders.

Sean's POV

She's in the shower and I have some time to think. I hate that she's still not o.k.

It's even worse knowing that she's depending on _me_ to make it better. Honestly, every other time she's trusted me to get her through something I've always screwed it up, I don't know why she thinks this time it's going to be different.

But I'm going to try my damndest to make it work this time around, because she's worth it.

And I am trying. Spike actually came to see me pretty soon after she figured out this was where Emma was disappearing to in the middle of the night. She said she wanted to make sure I was really trying this time; that I wasn't going to do something stupid and leave her broken again.

She poked around some, told me that she was going to trust me but she only did that once with people she wasn't related to and so I shouldn't screw it up.

I nodded at that somewhat strangled declaration that reminded me she really was Emma's mother, and she started to let herself out. She yelled back from the front door that I should come for dinner more often because the lack of food in this apartment was appalling.

I guess I should take what I can get with Christine Nelson. She's a tough one to please.

I open the cabinet and pull out the box of oatmeal, brown sugar maple syrup flavored—Emma's favorite. I don't usually feel like I can tell her exactly what I want to tell her, but I try to show her and she usually looks like she gets it.

Or at least I think she does.

Strike that, I know she does.

Because I know how to read her. I learned a long time ago how to figure out what she's really saying. It doesn't matter that I can't tell her how I feel all the time, I know she knows from the smile on her face when I pull back from a hug: like she can't believe we're this happy.

I know how to hear the other things she says without saying, too. More than Manny, even.

I know that when she runs on a mile a minute about the stupid feud Toby has going on with the janitor, or how Manny has changed her nail polish four times this week and it's only Tuesday, or even about the stupid jokes Snake told at the dinner table last night what she's really saying is that she wishes I were there and she wants me to be included in her life, boring parts and all.

I understand that when she looks at me with the shattered look in her eyes she's not expecting a promise that it will all be better forever, only that it'll be better for now.

I know that when she shows up in the middle of the night that in the morning she really does want to talk about it; in the end what she's really after is comfort.

But I love that what she says is really only the first layer to what she's really telling me, and I love that she wants me to take care of her, even though if you ever told her that she'd take your head off. After all, Emma Nelson needs no one to take care of her—she's a feminist with independent ideals, after all.

The microwave beeps and I pull the oatmeal out, mixing a teaspoon of margarine into it as I gently blow to cool it off.

She comes into the kitchen just as I finish, dressed for the day in a jersey skirt and pink top. Her light make-up is on, but all the under-eye concealer in the world can't cover-up the fact that I know she hasn't been sleeping. She looks incredibly tired, and it makes me feel incredibly helpless. I rub her arm as I eat my toast. Her eyes cut away from my face and I know she sees that I've noticed.

"Em—"

"Look, Sean, you know this isn't the first time I've had nightmares—I mean, I'm over here at night more often than not, and you know I don't sleep well after them—"

"Emma, come on. You can't go on like this." I'm getting dangerously close to pleading at this point and I'm not really sure how to stop myself, even as I recognize how potentially bad this discussion could go if I stoop to pleading. Emma will get defensive, I'll lose my temper, and then we're back to me slamming locker doors and stealing things while she stews in the background and laughs as she turns me in to the authorities.

Bad, bad plan.

"Sean! What do you want me to say? I _know _I can't go on like this, but honestly, I don't know how to fix it."

"Well, how did you deal with the nightmares last time? I know that they've come back with J.T., but they went away before, right?" I'm grasping at straws here, but this is killing me.

"Last time I got rid of them by replacing them with the slightly less frightening but just as traumatic Jay Hogart down in a random van at the ravine. I don't think that sounds like a viable plan this time around." Her defensive answer puts me on guard, but I fight down the impulse to yell on the basis that I know what she's doing and I have to be stronger than her admittedly strong attempts to pick a fight.

"How about you wake me all the way up the next time you have a nightmare and we can talk about it? Replace the bad feelings with good ones?" I take a shot in the dark about her basic motivation for her trips to the ravine—I honestly have no idea but that explanation sounds the most like the Emma I know, so I'm going with that suggestion.

She nods slowly, looking at me with cautious curiosity. "You really wouldn't mind?"

"Of course not, Emma." I look at her with a little bit of disbelief—did she really think I would mind?

She looks at me with a mixture of relief and happiness that I absolutely adore and kisses me on the cheek.

"O.k. See you after school?" She gets up and heads towards the door. She's done talking and I know that pushing would be an even worse move than pleading at this point. I nod and she smiles again. "Alright then. See you at 3."

With that she's gone and I'm left with that slightly depressed feeling I always get when she leaves my presence.

I can't wait until I see her again later today and the thought gets me in the shower and off to work, where I kill the time until it's time to take my break and catch up with Emma as she leaves school.

Emma's POV

It's one in the morning and I'm headed down the street in my pajamas for the fourth time this week. I'm so tired I could scream, but I can't get any sleep in my own bed.

It's only 20 meters from where J.T. was stabbed.

One of us didn't make it this time, and it has petrified me into sleeplessness at the thought.

I've done this before, with Rick and the shooting. It was just as bad, until suddenly I got gonorrhea and had bigger fish to fry than obsessing about past events as the entire school began to talk about me.

Maybe the incident with J.T.—and it does feel horrible to talk about it like a random party or something, but the therapists I've seen said to distance myself by using clinical terms, so I'm gonna go with it—triggered the idea of life versus death and I'm having trouble dealing with the concept all over again.

Or maybe the thought that it could have been Sean going outside to get more ice or beer getting stabbed has driven me so out of my mind with fear and worry that I'm visualizing the possible alternative endings to the night—alternatives that put me in Liberty's shoes.

I don't know anymore.

I let myself into Sean's apartment and make my way to the bedroom. He looks so peaceful there, and I almost hate to wake him, but I'm so tired and I know I won't be able to sleep if I don't talk to him. And if he wakes up in the morning and finds out I had a nightmare and didn't wake him, well, the disappointment in his eyes won't be pretty and I don't think I can take it at this point.

So I shake him awake and when he pulls me into his arms and whispers that it's alright, I find myself crying out everything I'm feeling. All the frustration and the anger at myself, all the exhaustion and the disappointment that I can't make myself better, everything.

He just listens and nods and says all the right things. Things like how he love me even when I think I'm crazy, how I'm not nearly as screwed up as I think I am, how I can stay here and sleep all night long now.

When I'm done he lays us down and I'm in his arms and I'm so happy that he didn't kick me out after he sees how messed up I am that I could cry.

He smiles at me slightly and I settle down with my head on his collarbone, legs tangled in his. He kisses my forehead and to my surprise I feel myself slipping into a blissful sleep.

I whisper that I love him again before I surrender to the best night's rest I've had in weeks.


End file.
